Iran's airport police seize 737 kg of drugs

"Iranian airport police has seized a total of 737 kilograms of various kinds of drugs in the country's airports this year," IRNA quoted General Heidari as saying on Thursday.

"There has been a twelvefold increase in comparison to last year's figures which was just 63 kilograms," he added.

According to General Heidari, the seized drugs included 472 kilograms of crystal meth, most of which was discovered at Imam Khomeini International Airport (IKIA).

"Some 4,898 people involved in drug smuggling have also been arrested at Iranian airports this year," he went on to say.

"Airport police is to equip the country's airports with 10 body scanners which will help in uncovering drugs and nabbing smugglers," he asserted.

Iran lies on the narcotics transit corridor from Afghanistan - where militants, criminal organizations, and corrupt officials exploit narcotics as a reliable source of revenue - to drug kingpins across Europe.

Iran's easterly neighbor, Afghanistan, occupied by US-led forces since 2001, accounts for roughly 79 percent of the world's opium and heroin trade, according to the United Nations Drug Control Program.

Since the triumph of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, the country has lost more than 3,300 of its security forces in its relentless counter-narcotics campaign.